How popular is the baby name Alva in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Alva.
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Tuesday’s post about the Victorian-style Tylney Hall Hotel reminded me of a list of Victorian-era names that I’ve had bookmarked forever.
The list was created by amateur genealogist G. M. Atwater as a resource for writers. It contains names and name combinations that were commonly seen in the U.S. from the 1840s to the 1890s. Below is the full list (with a few minor changes).
| Victorian Era Female Names | Victorian Era Male Names |
|---|---|
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Which female name and male name do you like best?
Sweden’s top baby names of 2013 were announced recently.
According to data from Statistics Sweden (SCB), the country’s most popular baby names last year were Alice and Lucas.
Here are Sweden’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2013:
| Girl Names | Boy Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Alice, 903 baby girls 2. Maja, 767 3. Elsa, 766 4. Ella, 700 5. Julia, 687 6. Ebba, 663 7. Alicia, 625 8. Olivia, 616 9. Alva, 607 10. Wilma, 600 | 1. Lucas, 935 baby boys 2. William, 915 3. Oscar, 901 4. Oliver, 800 5. Hugo, 749 6. Charlie, 716 7. Liam, 708 8. Alexander, 694 9. Axel, 677 10. Elias, 676 |
Names that made the girls’ top 100 for the very first time were Hilma, Ellinor, Sally, Melina, and Nicole. New to the boys’ top 100 were Louie and Tor.
The top names of 2012 were Alice and William.
Source: Sweden’s most popular baby names revealed
Image: Adapted from Flag of Sweden (public domain)
Last month, FlowingData crunched some numbers to come up with the 35 most unisex baby names in the U.S. since 1930. Here’s the list:
I’m not sure exactly what criteria were used to create the rankings, but it looks like the top unisex names on this list were the top-1,000 names that “stuck around that 50-50 split” the longest from 1930 to 2012.
The FlowingData post also mentions that, though the data is pretty noisy, there might be “a mild upward trend” over the years in the number of babies with a unisex name.
**In 1957, Johnny Carson’s 5-year-old son Kim had his name changed to Richard because he’d been having “a little trouble over his name being mistaken for a girl’s.”
[Update, 11/7/2013: Changed Michael to Michel]
Source: The most unisex names in US history
Image: Adapted from Gallery 1 by Sarah Howells under CC BY-SA 3.0.
The most popular baby names in Sweden were announced a couple of days ago.
According to Statistics Sweden, the country’s top names are William for boys and Alice for girls.
Here are the top 20 girl names and top 20 boy names of 2012:
| Girl Names | Boy Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Alice 2. Elsa 3. Julia 4. Ella 5. Maja 6. Ebba 7. Emma 8. Linnea 9. Molly 10. Alva 11. Wilma 12. Agnes 13. Klara [tie] 13. Nellie [tie] 15. Isabelle 16. Olivia 17. Alicia 18. Ellen 19. Lily 20. Stella | 1. William 2. Oscar 3. Lucas 4. Hugo 5. Elias 6. Alexander 7. Liam 8. Charlie 9. Oliver 10. Filip 11. Leo 12. Viktor 13. Vincent 14. Emil 15. Axel 16. Anton 17. Erik 18. Olle 19. Theo 20. Ludvig |
Did you know that, back in 1888, Ebba was the top newbie baby name in the U.S.?
But let’s get back to Sweden.
Which Swedish names saw the biggest popularity boosts from 2011 to 2012?
Going up:
| Rising Girl Names | Rising Boy Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Sigrid 2. Majken 3. Elise 4. Alicia 5. Lykke 6. Ronja 7. Juni 8. Svea 9. Siri [tie] 9. Melissa [tie] | 1. Ebbe 2. Henry 3. Elvin 4. Charlie 5. Julian 6. Valter [tie] 6. Matteo [tie] 8. Elton 9. Edward 10. Mohamed |
And which names decreased the most in popularity?
Going down:
| Falling Girl Names | Falling Boy Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Minna 2. Tove 3. Elin 4. Evelina 5. Thea 6. Tindra 7. Filippa 8. Linnea 9. Tilde 10. Amanda | 1. Ville 2. Linus 3. Neo 4. Rasmus 5. Carl 6. Jonathan 7. Simon 8. Viggo [tie] 8. Tim [tie] 10. Joel |
Finally, here are the top baby names in Sweden from a couple of years ago.
Sources: Name Statistics – Statistics Sweden, William, Alice top Swedish baby names
Image: Adapted from Flag of Sweden (public domain)
